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I have today been nominated to upload a #NoMakeUpSelfie to Facebook as part of the latest social media craze.

At first, I was baffled by the campaign, which, according to status updates in my facebook newsfeed, had the aim of “raising awareness of cancer.” I found this confusing because I thought most people were pretty much aware of cancer by now (unless they live in a secluded community in the Brazilian rainforest far from the media and carcinogenic chemicals, I suppose).

Nevertheless, the campaign has evolved into one that aims to raise awareness of the work of breast cancer charities, especially Cancer Research UK, and my generous and fabulous women friends have been donating money when uploading selfies. This is admirable and makes much more sense as a campaign.

I do have some problems with the basis of the campaign though, if not with its aims (*collective groan* – sorry everyone).

The idea of women being sponsored, or sponsoring themselves, to go without make-up raises some interesting issues. Is removing make-up really the sort of grand gesture that is deserving of donations? The ultimate sacrifice for charity? The social media trend suggests that this is so. This in itself points to the fact that the world has not accepted women without make-up.* Indeed, the airbrushed, perfect images of women in the media pressure women to wear make-up, as do the endless advertising campaigns that make women feel ugly without it. Of course, why should women care if they feel “ugly” or “beautiful” according to social conventions of what constitutes attractiveness? We shouldn’t, but most of us do, because society trains us to from childhood.

If the #NoMakeUpSelfie idea was consciously and critically attempting to raise awareness of the patriarchal idea that women must be beautiful, and the capitalist idea that they can only be beautiful if they spend money on cosmetics, then I would applaud it. However, I’m not sure it is doing this consciously. It seems to have been started on the basis that an un-made-up woman is something of an unusual freakshow (unusual because many women have been made to feel unattractive without make-up, which is highlighted by some of the comments by men on my facebook newsfeed, calling women’s fresh-faced selfies “ugly”), something outrageous that is done for charity, like having a bath in baked beans. What is this saying? That women should strive to be more attractive by wearing make-up all the time, only taking it off if it’s for charity?

On the other hand, many women are reclaiming the #NoMakeUpSelfie campaign. The proliferation of diverse, un-airbrushed, un-cosmetically-enhanced images of women is a positive thing, which many of my women friends have noted in their own facebook statuses accompanied by their selfies. Furthermore, quite a few of my women friends have pointed out that they never wear make-up anyway, which in itself shows that the (sexist) basis of the BareFaced campaign – that it is always a daring feat for women to go without make-up – is flawed.

Here is my #NoMakeUpSelfie, which I post to raise awareness of how patriarchal society tells us that how we look isn’t good enough, and how capitalism cajoles us into spending money on (carcinogenic) cosmetics to make us look more socially acceptable:

And no I’m not dressed yet.

I have chosen to give my donation to Breast Cancer Action, which highlights the very political nature of the disease. I think it’s worth raising awareness of the their work and policies:

They lobby for more funding transparency by cancer campaigns that partner with corporations profiting from cancer (by selling products that they know have carcinogenic chemicals, for example, or from creaming huge profits off the medicines they make), such as the Pink Ribbon campaign.

They focus on the social disparities amongst mortal victims of cancer. In the US for example, a black woman is 40% more likely to die of breast cancer than a white woman. Cancer is not just about genes, it’s also about social injustice.

They highlight the environmental links to breast cancer (did you know that 70% of breast cancer victims have none of the known genetic “risk factors”?) and campaign against the use of carcinogenic chemicals in many of the products that we use everyday (WHICH, IRONICALLY, INCLUDE COSMETICS**
– in the light of this, going “make-up free” to fight cancer makes much more sense!)

They advocate for less toxic and more effective treatment for breast cancer, and for the treatments that are best for the patient rather than those that best match the needs of corporations.

They have a strict corporate donations policy (no donations from corporations that profit from cancer) and are therefore in far greater need of donations from members of the public.

*I don’t mean to suggest that all women who wear make-up do so due to societal pressures. There are many reasons why women wear make-up. Some see it as an art form, for example. Others find it creative and fun. I should also note that I deplore the shaming of women who are seen to “wear too much slap.”

**Click here or here for advice on buying make-up and other cosmetics that aren’t going to give you cancer.

WOMAN, the year is 1984 and you are the dictator of your body. Keep it under tight surveillance, bending it to the will of culture. You mustn’t forget that society owns your body, but you are responsible for its upkeep.

Why do you sit like that, with your wicked unwieldy flesh spread out all over that chair? Don’t take up so much space: it’s unladylike. Fold your arms in. Cross your legs. Bow your head. That’s better.

Were you born in the West? Capitalism will help you to police your body. Buy make up to veil your face. Pay a diet club to weigh you in each week like cattle at the market. An obliging surgeon will mutilate you into shape for the right price. Contract another woman, preferably a migrant, to rip out your body hair and colour your nails. Buy clothes, lots of clothes. Far away, other women are destroying their bodies with 18/7 shifts to make them for you.

Your body is here for men’s enjoyment. However, don’t forget that there is a fine line between looking enticing and asking to be raped. Impose limits on your body to avoid the latter: curfews, avoidance of intoxication, flirting, wearing short skirts. Keep your demeanour well-policed. If anything happens to you it is your own fault and you will bear the consequences.

The government owns your womb. Check with the state before using contraception, aborting or attempting reproduction. If you are poor in a Western country, you have no right to children. If you live in a colonised country, your role is a baby-assembly line. The nation needs your offspring to increase the size of its army.

Are you fat or aged? Retire from public life immediately for you are no longer useful. Are you young? Speak only when spoken to and, pray, do not be shrill.

Never forget it: you are the Chief Overseer, not the owner, of your body.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has issued a travel advisory for this intimate area. Anyone who penetrates the area risks contact with thousands of sweat glands and potential kidnap by radicalised groups of unwaxed hairs.

As has been discussed elsewhere on the Capitalist Beauty tag and by Caroline Criado-Perez, the beauty industry has a water-tight business model: it feeds on women’s insecurities about our bodies (our vulnerability stems from the fact that we are taught, from girlhood, that our self-worth is inextricably linked to our ability to mimic constructed notions of beauty and physical attractiveness) by convincing us that we are repulsive. Then, it sells us back the “solutions.” That is, solutions to problems that wouldn’t exist at all if it wasn’t for the beauty industry in the first place.

The most repugnant part of a woman’s body, according to the beauty industry, is her vagina. Apologies! Even the word itself is too offensive to say! Therefore, for the rest of this article I shall follow the beauty industry’s preferred lingo and refer to a woman’s sexual organs as her intimate area.*

There is already a whole array of products and surgical procedures to make our intimate areas seem more pubescent, whiter and tighter. Now, as a TV advertisement informed me the other evening, we should now also be using Vagisil, which, as far as I understand, is a type of Febreze for fannies. According to the advert, although a sweaty “odour” is entirely “normal” in a lady’s intimate area, she should nevertheless be so embarrassed by the fact that her area sweats that she should hide behind a houseplant.** Yet, scenting her intimate area with Vagisil products will “give her the confidence” to kick over the houseplant and brave the social world again. Presumably, this is the capitalist version of women’s empowerment.

Eve was forced to hide behind a fig leaf because she had no Vagisil (and God hadn’t invented houseplants in those days)

But gosh! It had never occurred to me that my intimate area shouldn’t be sweating. If – as the beauty industry tells me – my intimate area should be febreezed, lighter-coloured, labia-free, more symmetrical, tighter, hairless and so on, would it not just be easier to have the entire area removed? Or perhaps we should just glue the lips together with special Vagisil sealant, so that the intimate area would at least stop secreting disgusting fluids such as menstrual blood?

Frankly, by shouting, as they do, “WOMAN, YOUR VAGINA IS DISGUSTING,” Vagisil and the rest of the so-called “intimate health” industry are guilty of profound misogynism and they call for us to collaborate them: they wish for us to hate our intimate areas and to heap shame on other women who don’t. I have spoken to my own intimate area about this, and she is very angry. She is not taking it lying down (although she often does). This intimate area says V is for Vendetta, as well as for Vagina, and she is planning revenge on Vagisil. She has yet to decide what form the vengeance will take, but it will probably involve sending one of the following to the Vagisil office: the Order of the Lady Finger, an old pair of un-febrezed pants, or some artwork formed of vagina prints. Further suggestions welcome.

*Note that this turn of phrase is the clinical and character-free linguistic equivalent of magnolia paint, which is a shame given that the vagina is a source of pleasure and babies. If only the beauty industry used “fun tunnel” or “mother of all souls,” which, I’m sure you’d agree, are nicer substitutes for “vagina”.

** If you really must follow the advert’s advice, could I suggest you choose the marijuana as your refuge of choice. It may help you to put things into perspective.

Once again I’m passing my summer in piropolandia (cat-calling land) aka Andalusia, where every young woman’s street harassment dreams come true. Whilst bronzing my bikini body by the pool, I have had the chance to sample the Andalusian edition of ¡Qué Me Dices! (Fancy That!), which is the woman’s Saturday supplement of the catholic right’s newspaper La Razón.

The magazine is a fascinating read on many levels. Perhaps the aspect of it that most baffles me is the juxtaposition of an advert for a catholic, diamond encrusted gold charm bracelet (complete with one of god’s commandments on each of the ten charms) with three A4 pages of adverts for prostitutes and erotic phone lines.

One advertisement in particular caught my attention: that for “Lolitas,” implicitly aimed at the Andalusian gentleman for whom the underage partner is preferred. In case there is a need to remind the reader, international laws dictate that a child cannot consensually prostitute her or himself and thereby automatically classes punters who buy sex from children as guilty of rape and paedophilia, and pimps of sexual exploitation. As well as the obvious question as to why there are three pages of prostitute publicity in a woman’s supplement, one also feels compelled to ask Fancy That’s editors: do Catholicism and paedophilia really go well together? Oh.

Fancy That’s most inspiring feature this week is its cover story “The Secret’s of Charlize Theron.” I have photographed this for you below, and highlighted ways in which you can recreate Charlize’s secrets with your own resources at home.

As Fancy That reminds its readers, “being pretty isn’t easy,” but it is implicitly necessary, hence the need to study Charlize’s secrets and apply them to oneself. If you stack up the prices of the products Fancy That says you need if you want to look like Charlize Theron, you will find that the total exceeds €500. Lets remind ourselves of Andalusia’s economic situation. With unemployment at a high of 36.87%, more families made homeless on a daily basis, and food banks becoming a necessity for ever more people, should Fancy That really be spending its existence persuading women that, without expensive products, women will never be as pretty as they ought to be? Well, yes, for beauty in a woman is so vital a quality that it should be your top priority even when you have lost your livelihood and home. So if you don’t have €500 lying around, then why not, just as I have, create your very own home laborattoir for fabricating beauty products? As well as using them yourself, you could also convince your friends that they are in need of such products and flog them for a buck or two. Ideas follow.

FANCY THAT SAYS: Charlize uses “phytoserum” to make her breasts “better”, “firmer” and “more volumised”. NATURAL WOMAN SAYS: Kill a wasp and extract its sting. (Watch out girls, here comes “the science bit!” – best get a man to read this then explain it to you slowly…) Your immune system reacts to the wasp venom by sending in blood cells to fight the invading chemicals. The extra blood supply results in swelling. If you rub venom all over your chest your breasts will therefore grow, and it won’t cost you €42 (but you could sell it for that).

FANCY THAT SAYS: At €83.07, Lift Bras miraculously “tones (Charlize´s) arms, especially the zone below the bicep, which is prone to being flaccid.” NATURAL WOMAN SAYS: Add semen to your regular moisturising cream. This will prevent flaccidity, aka chicken wings. If you don’t have a man to hand, any other male mammal can be used.

FANCY THAT SAYS: Charlize uses “Frownies” to stick back the frowns around her forehead and eyes. NATURAL WOMAN SAYS: sellotape is cheaper than Frownies, but is basically the same thing.

I have taped back all the wrinkles on my forehead, yet you can barely see the sellotape. Ten years younger, instantly.

FANCY THAT SAYS: Charlize sprays Eau Sublimatrice/Moisturizing Beauty Water on her legs when wearing dresses or shorts. NATURAL WOMAN SAYS: Take tap water and place it in a plastic bottle with a perforated lid. As long as you give the water a French or scientific-sounding name, it will make your leg instantly beautiful when sprayed. Unlike other natural resources, water has yet to be fully privatised, so this method is currently free for all.

Spray Beauty Water on your leg and it will be beautiful, instantly

Enjoy! Before you navigate away from this page, take a final thought from Fancy That!

“Fancy That” has spotted this famous Spanish actor in the supermarket. The magazine makes the observation, “the actor, interested in vegetables, even went to the extent of touching – without making use of the plastic gloves – the artichokes in the market”. Well, just fancy that!

@sssukiii brings us an insightful infographic to encourage us to think critically about what we buy: Ethical Fashion Guide.

Click on the Ethical Fashion Guide link at the top of the page to open the guide. The red sewing machines indicate better policies.

A few months ago I read this horrifying article about the corruption surrounding the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh. Workers sewing clothes for Walmart, Sears and MJ Soffe, were told to sit at their machines after a fire alarm sounded. As they’d never had a fire drill practice before, most of the workers did as they were told, until smoke started spiralling up the stairs. There was no fire escape. Then the lights went out. Many tried to escape through the windows, which were blocked by grates. By chance some were able to escape by climbing down a web of flimsy scaffolding that builders had left by the building.

The complexity of supply chains and the income they bring to families and third world nations makes it all too easy to ignore the lack of information about the conditions our clothes are made in. When we feel compelled to find out more, that same hand wringing complexity may leave us wondering where to buy our clothes. Garments account for 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s total export earnings; it is virtually the nation’s only industry. It also has the lowest labour costs of all the garment’s producing countries in the world.

Improving labour conditions may change this, making the country less attractive to organisations like Walmart, which is one of the biggest buyers of clothes made in the region. The fact that responsible practices are so relative is why it’s now more important than ever for brands to ensure they’re transparent and clear about the conditions their products are made in.

We decided that some kind of visual and easy to understand guide was needed to help people make sense of how brands are responding to socially conscious consumers. Two organisations working to raise awareness of how companies are improving labour conditions are http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/ and Netherlands based, http://rankabrand.org.

Rank a Brand have several criteria which they use to score brands on their labour conditions, accounting for things such as whether:

– companies have a code of conduct, outlining hygienic conditions and standards against forced child labour and discrimination.

– their workers can join trade unions

– their factories are audited and audit information is responded to

– they aim to improve labour conditions as a wider organisation

This straightforward system, which aligns with the structure of a basic code of conduct, was ideal for creating a visual tool to compare how ethical brands are.

The graphic we’ve created shows how little high-end brands invest in demonstrating their integrity despite being all about image. Several exclusive brands, including Paul Smith and Dior, stand out for the lack of information they offer consumers about how their clothes were made. A few such as Burberry claim to use British suppliers, however, as they haven’t felt the need to tell us who these suppliers are, or the conditions they work in, they have been placed at the dubious end of the scale.

Company practices are of course always changing, so the graphic functions as a snap shot of what industry is currently doing. Rank a Brand’s research shows how vastly brands differ in the way they’re improving labour conditions and how relative these ethical practices are. Being able to compare these visually may help people make a more informed, if not ideal, choice.

In this sense, simply boycotting brands may not the answer. Pressure needs to be put on improving ethical supply chains. So if you discover that your clothes were made in bad conditions why not turn that shame into action by contacting the company who made them?

As thousands of British women are increasingly realising, most vaginas are disgusting in their natural state. If you want to be a proper woman, you had better tidy yours up and make it look as much like Barbie’s as possible: smooth, hairless, flat, and preferably plastic. You see, variations in the appearance of women’s intimate anatomy are not, as you may have previously thought, natural. Rather, they are downright pathological.

As top Labioplaster (that is, plastic surgeon specializing in improving the aesthetics of vaginas by chopping off the labia) Dr Stern explains on his labiaplast site, women with “large and asymmetrical labia” can experience “severe embarrassment” should they ever be able to find a sexual partner. As a few of Dr Stern’s fellow labioplasters have stated (quoted on Jezebel), if you want to avoid your man retching in horror when you remove your knickers, best to make your vagina “nice and tidy” and give it that “petite, athletic” look by having your labia minor (the inner lips) removed entirely. This process is aptly named The Barbie. Perhaps, when you’ve had your labia chopped off, you could give them to your favourite Ken as a take home gift.

Dr Stern, the Labioplaster, is also a Vaginoplaster. That is, he helps women who have experienced childbirth to make their vaginas “tight” again. Vaginoplasty involves Dr Stern removing the entire vagina mucosa, the soft lining of your vagina, thereby “increasing friction” for your partner, who may otherwise find sex “less satisfying than it once was” before you pushed out all his babies. You should also try Vaginal Bleaching to make your bits “lighter and whiter”, because white and prepubescent is always best.

Be warned, surgery for your vagina is very expensive and might set you back a good few thousand sterling. Therefore, if you are poor, I suggest you take out a loan. If this is not possible, it is best to switch off the lights if you get with a man and definitely don’t expect him to perform oral sex. That is, of course, unless you have a vagina mint handy, to “flavor your secretions” and make your otherwise horrid juices stomachable for your man.

A proper woman should also do her utmost to avoid the general public having to endure the unsightly curves of her intimate area. Woe betide you if you should ever go out with Camel Toe. If you are unsure what Camel Toe is, check out one of the many British women’s magazines (such as Heat), which helpfully police the phenomenon by ridiculing women in the public eye who suffer from the affliction.

Are you worried that one day you might fall victim to Camel Toe? You should be. According to the makers of SmoothGroove, the shoe horn-like piece of plastic that combats the affliction, “a staggering 55% of women, irrespective of age, size or weight” experience Camel Toe at some point in their lives.” Camel Toe can cause critical levels of “embarrassment.” But SmoothGrove can make women’s lives “just that little bit easier.” As the makers say, the Camel Toe “remedy” allows “all women to get on with their lives without having to worry about how they look.” Well thank God for that. Thank God some one has been worrying about how to empower me as a woman, because all this time I had been preoccupying myself with other matters.

I am grateful to SmoothGroove and the Labioplasters for helping me see the light. Before, I had worried about issues such as sexual violence, losing my job and the illness of loved ones. In more naïve stages of my life, I had felt embarrassed by events such as not realizing I have a snot on my nose, spitting food on people when I attempt (as I regularly do) to eat and talk at the same time, having the train’s digital bathroom door (that I have yet again failed to lock) opened by another passenger whilst I sit helplessly on the toilet seat out of reach of the “close” button, or watching unforeseen sex scenes on the television with relatives. All along, I could have put all my worrying and cringing energies into the aesthetics of my vagina. If only I’d fretted earlier, I could have had the ugly mess sorted by now.

Just so you know, Camel Toe is not yet a medical pathology. Say the makers of Smooth Grove of the Camel Toe terminology, “we’ve searched high and low for a medical term … but there isn’t one.” Watch this space.

A column on the dark arts of hiding the “problem areas” of your body fashionably. Because women can’t feel good unless others say they look good.

Gok Fran is the saviour of modern womanhood. He takes women with heartbreakingly low self-confidence due to their physical deviations from idealized images of beauty and, instead of helping such women to free their minds from this sexist pressure for feminine perfection, he puts them in spanx body suits and trusses them up like Christmas turkeys! But not just any Christmas turkey, no matter what the lady’s personal style, it’s the same “confident” Mad Men/air hostess/1950s Republican Lady inspired Christmas turkey!

Then, Gok Fran assists his “girlies” into his personal collection of body control underwear – or should we call it scaffolding (but only after being tanned, waxed, coiffed and made-up) for comment by family, friends and the reality TV-consuming nation! Why? Because women are only “empowered” when they receive public approval of their bodies! Gosh! As Gok Fran points out on his own gokwan website, he has encouraged women everywhere, even those that deviate from our mainstream ideas of beauty, to “strip for the nation!” How patriotic! After all, the role of all women, not just those on FHM’s sexiest ladies list, is to sexually titillate, and Gok Fran is helping us all to do just that! That’s why we’ve given him his very own fashion column in which he aims to help all you wannabe Natural Women to dress how you should and strip like you should!

By Gok Fran and Jolene

Hey girlfriends!

Lots of New Year kisses and hugs from your Aunty Gok Fran! Loves ya!

Your Aunty Gok

Look what I dragged out the hedge today! It’s Jolene! A florist from Slough! Oh my days! Jolene, you have been a naughty girl – you’re a style disaster and your frizz is a disgrace! Come here cheeky, it’s time to give you a Gokover!

Shrinking violet Jolene’s confidence is at an all time low

Jolene hates her flabby waste and saddlebags, whilst I want to take control of her bootilicious bangers! Yummy! Belts (and a little masking tape) are key to body confidence.

Create the all- important illusion of a feminine waist in a flirty pink belt. The tighter the better, sista! Watch the men flock…

Add some customized peep-toes for instant glamour… and their slimming too. Pump up the sassfactor within an inch of your life! OUCH!

Jolene is now in full bloom after her gorgeous Gokover! I’ve put a bang on trend twist on the classic little black dress. Jolene oozes Jackie O style sans the sunglasses. Her silk headscarf covers her frizz by day and doubles up as an elegant cape by night. The A –line cut of the dress covers all manner of body sins and the retro peep-toes reflect the femininity of the corsage collection resting above her lil pups. Very simple,very sophisticated, very me.

Goodbye to all my bootylicious girls from your Aunty Gok! Don’t forget to buy my gorgeous beauty, spectacle, make-up, fragrance, daywear, evening wear, underwear and scented tampon ranges! And watch out for me in case I catch you unawares and squeeze ya baps in the street! Loves ya! XXXX P.S. It’s my way or the highway.

Are you a woman? Do you sometimes have difficulty getting “in the mood”? Does sex sometimes prove disappointing? Did you think this was due to one or more of a whole range of factors in your life such as stress, body confidence issues, feeling disrespected by your partner, relationship satisfaction, the quality of your sexual education, a selfish lover or indeed wider social, political and economic factors? If you thought so, you would be wrong.

Leafing through the pre-Christmas weekend edition of one of Spain’s favourite newspapers, El País, I was delighted to learn of a cure for a new disorder that, according to the paper, affects 80% of women. Hypoactive Sexual Desire (HSD), which appears to be alternatively termed as Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD) by some medics, is an “illness” (El País’ term) whose symptoms include lack of sexual desire and an inability to orgasm. If you didn’t already know it, women’s sexualities aren’t just complex, they are positively pathological. Thankfully, some American pharmaceutical companies have found a cure for the dysfunction, which they themselves seem to have invented.

Your sexual failures and bodily dysfunctions can be quickly fixed by squirting Tefina, a spray gel containing testosterone, into your nose two hours before sexual activity. According to El País and their range of medical experts (many of whom happen to be pharmaceutical company directors), the nasal spray will make you horny and allow you to come. Yet, if you are scared that too much testosterone will cause “aggressiveness, excessive body hair, insomnia and weight gain” (as suggested by El País) then rejoice, because there is an alternative solution for your illness: the G-Shot.

Says one of El País’ said medical experts, the G-Shot simply involves injecting some collagen or hyarluronic acid into your G-spot, thereby making it bigger (but surely not more sensitive?), and it only costs £800. This confuses me somewhat, since I had previously believed that the G-spot was a mythical invention that happened to be conveniently located for the form of sexual activity preferred by heterosexual men (unlike the clitoris). If the G-spot doesn’t exist, how can one inject it with acid? Could this all be just another ploy by the multi-million pound cosmetogynecology and pharmaceutical industries to profit from women’s insecurities? Surely not. It was in the newspaper so it must be true.

I must go and wax my moustache – a happy sign that I may have enough testosterone to bottle and sell to all my friends for Christmas (with a healthy profit margin, of course J).

Feminine ladies, the importance of retaining a youthful appearance should never be underestimated. Younger and prettier is always better. Wrinkles and white hair may add character and wisdom to a man’s look, but do not fool yourself into thinking this can be true of older women. Keep young and beautiful, or you may never snag that all-important dream man, without whom you will be a haggard old spinster forever, and you will have no one but feminists, lesbians and cats for friends.

At what age should you begin your fight against aging? US giant Walmart says during childhood, or at least its anti-aging cosmetics line aimed at eight-year-olds does. Nivea, on the other hand, actively encourages teenagers to use their anti-aging creams, which they see as a “proactive” way of “preventing the onset of wrinkles.” Dr Jean-Louis Sebagh of Crème Vital moisturising cream (£57 for 50ml, if you are interested) recommends that girls “start skincare young”. Indeed, says Dr Sebagh, “(i)f you start from 16 you will see the benefits. It is like feeding yourself properly.” I take certain issue with Dr Sebagh’s advice, since unlike neglecting moisturisers, not eating will eventually result in death. That said, if you are a proper woman, then “letting yourself go” and doing nothing to stop the appearance of those dry, scaly, clawing “crows feet” around your eyes, should really be punished by death (although, surely death is the ultimate form of aging prevention, n’est pas?).

It is settled. Start to preoccupy yourself with anti-aging creams as a teenager, or, to quote Nivea, be even more “proactive” and begin a lifelong dissatisfaction with your looks as a child. But at what age should you consider more, what I call, structural solutions, such as the knife or needle? My personal view is age 33 (which gives me a few more years to save up for some ops!) for this is a magical age. Saint Joseph was 33 when he took the Virgin Mary for a wife…. Word has it that the Virgin Mary no longer changed physical appearance from her 33rd year on Earth, her beauty both internal and external… 33 is the name of a private members club in the magical world of Disneyland… I have 33 vertebrae in my back… I diverge… Do excuse me. A few ideas to help you look younger:

The old favourite, Botox: inject poison into the muscles of your decrepit face to ensure that they can no longer contract or receive signals from your nerves.

The new Harley Street fad, the Vampire Facial: the customer’s own blood is extracted from the arm and then spun at a vigorous speed in a Centrifuge for six minutes before being re-injected into the person’s skin through tiny holds made in their face with a “probe”. This reminds me of the legendary torture device of the Middle Ages, the Iron Maiden. Yet it must work, because the Daily Mail says so. Says the columnist that tested it “(b)lood trickled down my face like raindrops down a window pane — so much blood that I can honestly say I’ve experienced few things as frightening in my life… but … it worked wonders on my neck.” You could also try the Elizabeth Bathory method (Bathory was the Slovak countess that killed 650 virgins in order to bathe in their youth-inducing blood. A modern, legal alternative could include a bath of black pudding).

Like the Vampire Facial, but for your whole body and without the Harley Street price tag. Order yours now from all good beauty stores, or MI6/the CIA.

Favoured by British royals, Bee venom. What more can I say? You insert it in your face. It’s Mother Nature’s botox.

The Bee Venom facial in action

Finally, why not try a “traditional” Thai face-slapping facial, a snip at $350 per 15-minute slot: My dad would say that anyone who pays $350 dollars on a beauty treatment deserves a slap. But he has leathery skin.

Proper women are highly skilled in grooming themselves in accordance with the latest fashions of the day. Like real-life fembots we systematically pluck, wax, trim, dilapidate and laser ourselves to make sure we are bald on all the right patches of our skin. On the other hand, we must grow our hair on some patches of our bodies, and if our locks are not long and smooth enough, we should, of course, extend them with man-made (or poor people’s) hair.

Yesterday, whilst changing clothes before departing for a rare trip to the public baths, I glanced in the mirror and froze in horror at the sight of my poorly pruned privates. Imagine the scene of mass, fear-fueled exodus from the pool by my fellow swimmers were they to spot a stray pube protruding from underneath my costume. This is a probable scenario, since women’s natural bodies are disgusting, and if you wish to be a socially acceptable lady, you must take measures to disguise your numerous hair imperfections. If you fail to do so, you risk Heat magazine journalists zooming in on the ugly parts of your body and printing the images in their weekly publication for their British female readership to devour and ridicule. With this in mind, I decided to apply hair removal cream to my bikini line. The problem was that the mixture, which uses a combination of chemicals to burn away your hair, smelt horribly of rotten eggs and left an unsightly and sore rash of red pimples all over my tender lady’s area. As such, the swimming trip was abruptly cancelled.

And so arises my dilemma. How can one employ a pricey product (and thus maintain our revered beauty industry) to make the hair of my lady area more socially acceptable? As always, after a few hours of intense and laborious thought, I came up with a solution: pubic hair extensions! Why not? If attaching someone else’s long hair to your head is feminine, surely it is so for your bikini area.

Below you can observe a picture of Yours Truly modeling the new bikini line style at home.

Team up your long blonde extensions with an iridescent purple sarong for a sophisticated summer look.

In addition to the extensions, I have happily discovered a new lady-area related hobby. Thanks to Cosmopolitan, the magazine for endless tips on how to pleasure your man, I have discovered the oracle of femininity, the more attractive sister of Vajazzle, the pinnacle of womanly prettiness. I have discovered pubic hair stencils.

What fun I’ve had shaping my pubic hair into heart shapes! My bikini area looks fabulous and feels happy, so thanks Cosmo magazine! Yet, in addition to the stencil shapes provided by Cosmo, you should be creative and try new ideas. How about a Playboy bunny shape? Or, if in a catholic country, try a crucifix? Why not embrace the Great British Jubolympic spirit and stencil a portrait of Elizabeth Regina onto your bikini area? You could then justify christening your front bottom with a sophisticated, even regal, pet name: it could be your Queen Elizabeth Vagina, and all its loyal subjects would be bound to serve it until death. What more can I say? Ma’am, it’s such fun to be a socially acceptable woman.

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On capitalist beauty

I have today been nominated to upload a #NoMakeUpSelfie to Facebook as part of the latest social media craze. At first, I was baffled by the campaign, which, according to status updates in my facebook newsfeed, had the aim of “raising awareness of cancer.” I found this confusing because I thought most people were pretty […]

WOMAN, the year is 1984 and you are the dictator of your body. Keep it under tight surveillance, bending it to the will of culture. You mustn’t forget that society owns your body, but you are responsible for its upkeep. Why do you sit like that, with your wicked unwieldy flesh spread out all over […]

As has been discussed elsewhere on the Capitalist Beauty tag and by Caroline Criado-Perez, the beauty industry has a water-tight business model: it feeds on women’s insecurities about our bodies (our vulnerability stems from the fact that we are taught, from girlhood, that our self-worth is inextricably linked to our ability to mimic constructed notions of beauty and […]

Once again I’m passing my summer in piropolandia (cat-calling land) aka Andalusia, where every young woman’s street harassment dreams come true. Whilst bronzing my bikini body by the pool, I have had the chance to sample the Andalusian edition of ¡Qué Me Dices! (Fancy That!), which is the woman’s Saturday supplement of the catholic right’s […]

@sssukiii brings us an insightful infographic to encourage us to think critically about what we buy: Ethical Fashion Guide. A few months ago I read this horrifying article about the corruption surrounding the Tazreen factory fire in Bangladesh. Workers sewing clothes for Walmart, Sears and MJ Soffe, were told to sit at their machines after […]